


Ordinarily

by Azzandra



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Early Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 14:37:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5970607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Preston Garvey is the first person Phil develops feelings for after she leaves the vault. He is hardly the last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Progress

This was ridiculous, but she felt like she was in fifth grade again, when Jimmy Vimmel asked her to be his girlfriend and she said yes and they spent a couple of days awkwardly avoiding eye contact and shuffling their feet because neither knew what was supposed to come next.

Oh, she knew what was supposed to come next now. She was a grown woman, for Christ's sake. She'd been married. She'd had several boyfriends and girlfriends over the years. She knew what that kind of thing involved.

It was just the implementation that was giving her some trouble.

Her glance flitted back to Preston, and the disappointing fact that she couldn't, at the moment, angle for some hand-holding. He held his laser musket in both hands, and his gaze was holding firm forwards as they followed the train tracks.

She was starting to feel a bit self-conscious about her sudden irrational hankering for Preston's hand, otherwise she would have asked him point blank to indulge her.

She scanned the horizon, trying to put her thoughts in order.

Goddamn, she was probably rusty anyway. With her luck, two hundred years in a cryo pod was just long enough for someone to lose all their game.

Okay, no, she was just going to have to pick her moment. Even if she wanted to touch him right now at this very moment.

She glanced back at him, and caught him looking at her. He looked away quickly, and then, sheepishly, back at her.

Phil felt her face flush with heat.

Oh god, it's the both of us, isn't it, she despaired.

She didn't know if that made it better or worse.

  
Phil would not have thought before that hiding in a basement from a radiation storm could be described as 'cozy', but much like everything else, she had had to recalibrate her sensibilities to the new world she lived in.

It was definitely because of Preston that the word cozy came to mind, though.

They sat side by side on the mattress, their backs against the walls, idly watching the ceiling. Once in a while there was a thunderous crack, and her Pip-boy made one or two half-hearted clicks, but even not counting the Rad-X they'd taken, it didn't seem they were soaking up much of the radiation.

She felt a sort of light-headed nausea anyway, a psychosomatic response to the amounts of radiation she knew she would be exposed to outside.

"I used to like thunderstorms," Phil admitted sadly.

Not that she was sad, but it was sort of a sad little admission. It seemed trite, like saying one enjoyed long walks on the beach. Here, let me enumerate the clichés of my existence to you...

Maybe this time she was being rendered an idiot by how much she wanted to lay her head on Preston's shoulder.

Dammit.

He turned his head to look at her, a smile in his eyes.

"Okay," he said. "Not much of a fan of them myself."

"I think it's the kind of thing you only learn to like if you grew up with insulated housing and central heating," she said, looking down at her lap and fiddling with her Pip-boy's knob.

"I guess," he said. "Maybe thunderstorms just suit you."

"Oh? How'd you figure?"

Preston shrugged a bit.

"They're dramatic, aren't they?"

"You think I'm dramatic?"

"I--no, that's not what I meant-- I was saying--well, your life is kind of dramatic," he explained.

Oh, he thought he'd said the wrong thing, Phil realized. She could almost see his internal wincing. It was cute.

It was an opportunity.

She slipped her hand over his and squeezed.

"I know what you mean," she said, and did not take her hand back.

She shoots... she scores, she thought with self-satisfaction, as she looked back up towards the ceiling and pretended to forget she was holding Preston's hand.

A few minutes later, Preston adjusted his grip and threaded their fingers together properly.

Phil managed to conceal the full extent of her giddiness.

Now, how was she going to work her way up to kissing?


	2. Contact High

Preston had never heard Phil laugh like that. He'd heard her laugh, certainly, in her husky sort of way. He'd heard her chuckle, chortle, even giggle when appropriately provoked.

But the full-bellied, hysterical laughter, with tears at the edge of her eyes--that was something new.

She and Hancock were playing cards, though the game mostly seemed to consist of slapping cards out of each other's hands or brazenly cheating as much as actually playing. Preston couldn't follow the rules, and Phil and Hancock were laughing too hard to explain, but they smacked cards against the table with triumphant glee, and stole them from each other's hands openly, and complained loudly about each other whenever that happened.

Preston got the sense they were making a complete mess of the game, but neither seemed to care.

Hancock, at least, had the excuse of being high off some new concoction he was trying out. Phil didn't take chems as a rule, but she seemed to have caught onto Hancock's mood instead.

They were having fun.

Phil was having fun. A lot of it.

Preston had never gotten her to laugh that way, so deliriously happy. He only wished he could see her like this more often, but he couldn't even figure out how Hancock had accomplished it. There was probably a particular sort of charm required to accomplish this.

Phil turned to Preston right then, her laughter subsiding, but her shoulders still shaking.

She calmed down by degrees, her labored breathing slowly evening out. She turned around then, still a bit flushed in the face.

"Oh, it's really late, isn't it?" she asked as her eyes fell on Preston on the couch.

Preston shrugged, but she turned back to the small table and dropped her cards.

"Alright, Hancock, time to pack it in. Some of us actually wake up before noon," she said.

"Aw, you're breakin' my heart here," Hancock replied. "Just when I was this close to winning the whole thing."

Phil almost burst into laughter again, but managed to keep it down to a few snickers.

"Goodnight, Hancock," she said decisively and rose out of the chair. "Get yourself to bed."

Preston rose from his seat, and Phil fit herself under his arm as they left together.

The air was crisp and cool as they walked through the dark all the way to her own house. They walked in silence, Phil leaning against Preston.

She looked tired now, the evening's activity having drained her. By the time they walked through the door, she was only standing upright because Preston's arm was around her. Her eyelids drooped as she shrugged off her coat and threw it on the living room couch.

"Y' staying the night?" she mumbled to Preston.

"Sure," he said, and removed his own coat, placing it on the coat hanger.

They were in the bedroom and halfway to stripping down for bed when Preston couldn't resist broaching the subject.

"So. Hancock's charming," he said.

Phil looked up from where she was undoing her belt, and something in her gaze turned a bit more alert. She blinked away the sleepiness. Then she quirked a smile at Preston, and walked over to him, looping her arms over his shoulders.

"He is, isn't he?" she said. "So you wanna have a go?"

Preston stared at her for a few moments, feeling as though his mind had skipped like a record and jumped over a few lines of this conversation.

"Have a go?" he asked slowly.

"At Hancock," Phil clarified.

Preston's eyebrows rose.

"Me?!" he asked, incredulous.

Now it was Phil's turn to stare at him in incomprehension.

"Yeah," she said. "I mean--that's what you were asking about. Weren't you?"

"Hold on, I think we need to rewind a bit here. Why do you think I want to sleep with Hancock?"

"You--you said he was charming? In that tone of--" Phil interrupted herself and took a step back. She ran a hand through her hair. "God, that's not what you were talking about, was it?"

"No!" Preston said. "Well-- I mean, nothing against Hancock, but I thought you were the one who wanted to--"

Phil rubbed her face.

"Don't you?" Preston asked.

Phil threw her hands up.

"I think about having sex with a lot of people, Preston! I don't really go through with it every time," she said. "Nate and I had an open relationship. Whenever one of us wanted to sleep with someone else, we always sort of... gave each other the heads up. Asked if it was okay. I thought you and I were going to have the... the same conversation, just now."

"...Oh." Preston said. Then, after a moment's thought, "Do you want to sleep with Hancock?"

Phil opened her mouth and closed it again.

The silence extended for far too long, and Preston could feel there was something more that she wanted to tell him, if only she could put her thoughts in order.

"Babe?" he prompted.

"I feel like an ass," she blurted out suddenly. "I should have told you from the start. After Nate died, I didn't feel like I could... do this again even once, much less with any more people, but that was... that was honestly the norm for us? We just... Nate and I, we just needed more than one person at a time. We were always in love with each other, but it wasn't always... just with each other."

There was a pause as Preston processed this information.

"You're in love with Hancock?" he asked, not unkindly.

Phil sat down on the edge of the bed, shoulders slumped.

"Even if you were okay with it, I don't think I could sleep with Hancock anyway. Under the circumstances, it would just feel... dishonest," she said. "I should have told you from the start, because now it feels like I'm springing this on you and forcing you to accept this thing and I... I don't know. If you can."

It sounded like an argument she'd been having with herself.

Preston sat down next to her, and touched her back gently.

"I'm sorry you felt you couldn't tell me this," he said, his voice soft.

Phil tilted sideways and leaned her weight against him. Preston put his arm around her, gathering her to his chest and pressing his cheek against her hair.

"Babe, I know some people just don't do monogamy," he said. "Never got involved with anyone like that before, but I know it's just how some people work. I don't know how things were before, but the Commonwealth is pretty relaxed about this stuff."

Phil stood still for a few moment, before pulling back so she could look at Preston's face.

"...Really?" she asked.

"Really."

"It's a lot of work," she warned.

"Can't build anything worthwhile without it," Preston agreed. "What makes me happy is being with you. But I need you to do the stuff that makes you happy, too."

"Are you... giving your blessing here?" she asked. "You're saying you'd be okay with me dating Hancock?"

"I think he'd treat you right," Preston said, running fingers through Phil's dark locks. "I can think of worse guys you could go after."

Phil gave a tiny, choked laughter at that, and leaned forward again to hide her face in the crook of Preston's neck.

"You still didn't answer my first question."

"Which one's that?" Preston asked.

"Do you want to have sex with Hancock?"

Preston felt his face flush, and cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Let's... save this discussion until morning," he said instead.

Phil laughed in earnest then, the free, giddy sound resonating against the hole-filled walls.

They finished undressing and settled down on the mattress to sleep. Phil fit herself to Preston's body, her back to his chest as he drew his arms around her, and with a long exhale, they relaxed.

Preston was just starting to nod off when Phil whispered,

"Are you still awake?"

"Something wrong?"

Phil rolled over so she would face Preston. It was too dark to see her face, but Preston felt her gaze.

"What prompted this whole thing, anyway?" she asked. "What made you ask about me and Hancock?"

Preston was quiet for a few moments.

"It... doesn't matter."

"Preston," she said, bringing her hand up to press against his cheek, "if we can't talk about these things now, when it's just the two of us, it's only going to be worse after we include anyone else. Jealousy is going to happen, but it can be worked through. We just need to be honest."

Preston nuzzled her hand briefly before replying.

"It's just... he made you laugh. Hard. I never heard you laugh like that before."

"Oh." Phil was quiet, as if thinking on it. "I actually haven't laughed like that in years, I think."

Preston felt something clench inside him--jealousy, as Phil said. It didn't feel like something that could be talked out in that moment, and Preston felt a stab of shame, especially after assuring Phil he could do this.

"I guess... it was because I've been in a really good mood lately," Phil continued slowly, her fingers tracing Preston's jaw and trailing to his lips. "Someone's been making me really happy."

She pressed her lips against his briefly.

"It's you, silly," she added.

"Oh-- I-- Oh." Preston swallow, heat blooming in his chest, and worry uncoiling as he understood. "You too. I mean-- you make me happy too."

She chuckled warmly, and pressed another short kiss to his lips.

"Talk in the morning," she said definitively.

"Yeah," Preston replied.

She drifted off sometime afterwards, but Preston remained awake a few minutes more, simply enjoying some soppy self-indulgent thoughts about how in love he was.


	3. Incrementally

 

When Phil invited Hancock to travel with her, it had been an impulsive decision, and she began having second thoughts the moment she stepped out of the statehouse and out of the aura of Hancock's charisma.

He'd stabbed a man right before her eyes the first time she stepped into Goodneighbor. She'd forgotten about that somewhere between his bit about not wanting to be a tyrant and his views on power and responsibility.

It wasn't the kind of first impression many people had ever made on Phil, and since waking up in this new world, certainly not anyone she hadn't subsequently been forced to kill. This could turn into a very awkward affair very quickly, and Phil was especially not looking forward to it after she'd just fallen into a comfortable routine with Nick.

Oh, not that Nick seemed to share her concerns. 

"He'll watch your back," Nick had assured. "And won't stick anything in it to boot."

"Have you ever heard the expression 'damn with faint praise'?" Phil had replied.

Nick smiled at her then, and squeezed her shoulder.

"You'll be fine," he said. "Worst you've got to worry about is that you actually start liking the bastard."

So Phil laughed, and tried to find that reassuring. All she needed was someone with a good head in a fight and the street smarts she was lacking. Hancock was a good fit for that, and taking him along meant Nick would be free to go back to his day job, now that she at least knew where Shaun was and had a vague plan for how to reach him.

Sure enough, the next day, Nick went off to pursue a new case, and Phil, having finished hawking off every piece of junk she could part with, decided it was time to move on as well. She had people to shoot, and mutated ferns to find, and preparations to make for a voyage into the Glowing Sea, if only she could get the caps together.

Hancock was just outside the statehouse as she left Hotel Rexford, leaning against a wall and smoking. A shotgun was already strapped to his back.

"Ready to hit the road?" he asked, like he already knew she had second thoughts and didn't want to give her a chance to slink away without him.

Maybe he did. Maybe that was the reason he was just coincidentally hanging out on the route between Hotel Rexford and the exit.

Well, one way or another, she was committed now. No cowardly way out of this, anymore.

"Sure," she said. "Let's head out."

 

* * *

 

"You look like you could use a pick me up," he said at the end of their first day on the road, offering her a Jet inhaler. They were holed up in an old office building, after clearing it of radroaches. 

Phil stood there for a long moment, holding the inhaler, before gingerly placing it on the table between them.

"No, thank you," she said.

"Well, aren't you all manners," he said, giving her a lopsided smile. "You got a ride of choice? I'm more of a Mentats ghoul myself. Makes me feel intellectual."

"I don't do chems," Phil replied.

"What, nothing?" he asked, looking surprised.

Phil didn't think the few Daytrippers she'd popped back in her college days were worth mentioning. Especially not when it seemed everyone in law school was downing Mentats by the fistful. She'd always been uneasy with the thought of dependency; she often wondered how any of her colleagues expected to still be able to do things once the chems ran out.

But then, maybe she was the one missing the point. A lucrative career in law was perhaps meant to keep them in Mentats for the rest of their lives. Her colleagues with a taste for the stuff had all been top of the class, while she had graduated as rather middling, overall, and with no job offers. A great student, but mediocre compared to everyone who kept a steady diet of Mentats throughout their school career.

But no, she preferred doing things the hard way, and she shook her head in response to Hancock's question.

"I respect that," he replied. "But hey, keep the Jet anyway. It's a gift."

"Thank you," Phil replied.

"There's those manners again," Hancock chuckled. "You're spoilin' me here."

Phil was unsure if it was a real complaint or not, but she took the Jet and placed it in her pack anyway. She would sell it to the next trader she came across, politely out of Hancock's view if she could manage it. If not, she needed the caps anyway, and chems were a good seller.

For now, Phil spread her bedroll and went to sleep for the night, still not sure what to make of Hancock.

It was only as she fell asleep that it occurred to her that Hancock might be wondering what to make of her as well.

 

* * *

 

There was a certain brand of brutalism, apparently common nowadays in the Commonwealth, that meant some people used violence as a first resort, because of some delusion that anything short of ruthlessness was vulnerability.

Phil did not like it.

She expected much of the same thing from Hancock. It was hard for her not to, when seeing how he twirled that knife in idle moments. And perhaps some prejudices she'd had from before the war did make her take a dim view of him because of his chem habits.

So it was the tiny gestures of care on his part that surprised her most. The way he steered her away whenever her Pip-boy's geiger counter started going nuts, the way he once clamped onto her arm and pulled her away from a ledge, when she almost fell over.

"You got serious thrill issues," he'd said, and Phil had been a bit unnerved by how genuine his worry had seemed.

"I think you need those to survive out here," Phil replied.

She was half-joking, but Hancock's grip on her arm tightened a bit.

"Hey, considering how dangerous it is out here, you should be taking _more_ care of yourself, not less," he said. 

She accepted the reprimand, and made sure not to wander near any sharp falls in the near future.

All of that could reasonably be justified as Hancock not wanting to be burdened with a liability while out in the Wasteland. But then, it seemed like there was a softer sort of concern at play when Phil stuffed her pack with one too many rolls of duct tape one day and nearly toppled over like the proverbial camel encountering the fateful last straw.

He straightened her up and offered to help, and before she could even reply, he took her pack, hefting it onto his own shoulder.

"I think that's too heavy even for you," she said, feeling the weight of it more, now that she was seeing the bulging pack on Hancock's slim shoulders.

"That's what the Buffout's for," he replied with a lazy grin.

"Oh. Thank you, then," she replied, "cheater."

He tipped his hat in her direction, his grin turning smug.

She picked up his pack instead--it was much lighter, she was fairly certain the only things in it were ammo and chems--and turned to him. She opened her mouth to say something, but realized belatedly that anything she planned to say would have sounded like a backhanded compliment. 'You're nicer than I thought you would be.' 'Thanks for not being the jerk I expected.' All very assholish lines, now that she thought about it.

"What?" he prompted, when the pause extended for too long.

"You're great," she blurted out. "I mean, you're good. You're a good guy. I'm happy to have you with me."

She clamped her mouth shut after that last sentence, judging that it was better to quit while ahead.

Hancock smiled at her. Not his usual cocky grin, but an actual smile.

"If I knew lugging around your spare scrap was such a sure way into your good graces, I woulda done this a while ago," he said.

Phil laughed, but bubbling from beneath her mirth was a different feeling, the pleasant fizz at the beginning of a crush, and later she would worry.

 

* * *

 

The first time Phil brought Hancock to Sanctuary, she'd worried maybe this wasn't his speed. It was hardly Goodneighbor, with its night life and the constant edge of danger.

But as they passed the guard post and its turrets, as they made their way into the heart of the settlement, Hancock actually let out a low whistle.

"Cozy set-up you've got here," he remarked, and tilted his head back so he could sweep his gaze over the rows of old houses and new structures.

"Well, it's more the settlers' than mine," Phil said as they made their way towards her old house. "Every time I drop in, it seems like they've got something new built. This place is expanding fast."

"That it is," Sturges had interjected, swaggering away from his workbench and up to Phil. "Those supply lines you've set up with some of the other settlements been working great for all of us involved. We get food, they get new defenses. We're still only just scrapin' by, but by a whole wider margin than before." Sturges smiled at Hancock just then, and extended his hand. "Sorry, here I'm prattling on and I didn't even introduce myself. Sturges."

Hancock took his hand and shook it, introducing himself as well.

"John Hancock from up Goodneighbor's way?" Sturges asked surprised. 

"The same," Hancock said, amused.

"Huh," Sturges said, before turning to Phil. "You're just making interesting friends all the time, ain'tcha?"

Phil laughed, rubbing the back of her neck.

It was at that moment Preston rounded a corner. His eyes lit up when he saw Phil, and Phil imagined hers might have lit up in turn, because Sturges gestured to Hancock and they both a bit away, starting a quiet chat about the settlement and also conveniently giving Phil and Preston some privacy.

Phil couldn't help the giddy impulse to throw her arms around Preston's neck, and he couldn't help lifting her off the ground in an embrace, and god, how she'd missed him. She kissed him like she was trying to breathe him in, and they were both dizzy and helpless by the time it was done.

He pressed his forehead against hers as they both gasped for air, and then began trying to tell her about a new spot for a settlement he'd heard about.

"It's infested with ghouls, but once it's cleaned out we can--"

He never got to finish the sentence, because Phil made a chiding sound and kissed him quiet.

"I can mark it on your map--" he started again, and Phil laughed.

"Are we going right now?" she asked.

"Oh--no! No, it's not urgent, I was just--" So Phil kissed him again.

"Then we can deal with it in the morning."

Phil dragged him off to bed after that, even though it was the middle of the day still.

It was good to be around Preston again. He was always a quietly reassuring presence, but when they spent time apart and were just coming together again, there was always an energy between them that made them hurried and desperate for touch. It made Phil giggle inappropriately, but it made Preston really give her a workout. 

In the afterglow, when Phil was limp with exhaustion and Preston was feeling even more cuddly than usual, she remembered to ask about the settlement he'd been so excited about, and she gave him her Pip-boy so he could mark it.

Preston scrolled through the map dreamily as Phil lay against his chest, watching the way he dragged the map this way and that, observing all the new annotations the map had gathered since the last time he'd seen her. He seemed in no hurry, as if the moment he placed the marker, Phil would pick up and leave. She couldn't blame him. The last time they traveled together, they had split off in Diamond City so she and Nick could embark on their investigation for Shaun's whereabouts. It had been rather abrupt, and now that she thought about it, she did miss traveling with Preston like in the early days.

"Been hanging out around the waterfront, huh?" Preston asked, pointing to the marks on the maps.

"Did you know there's a Chinese submarine out there?" Phil asked.

"You're kidding!" 

"It's some crazy shit," Phil muttered.

Preston laughed, because it was the first time she'd ever used that expression, and it did not exactly sound like something she would say naturally.

Phil swatted at him.

"Don't laugh," Phil said. "I don't do chems and I don't stab people, so Hancock had to rub off on me some other way."

"I've heard about Hancock," Preston said, turning serious again. "About how he runs Goodneighbor."

"Heard a bit too, until I walked right in."

Preston shifted, easing Phil off his chest and onto the pillow, and then he turned to face her.

"What do you think about him?" he asked.

She thought about it before giving her answer.

"He's got principles, and that's a rare thing these days. And he sticks to them, and that's a rare thing in any time period."

There was the tug of a rueful smile on Preston's face.

"You like him," Preston said. Not quite an accusation.

"I think I do," Phil admitted, surprising herself.

"Hope you know what you're doing, babe," Preston said.

"We're all hoping I know what I'm doing," Phil replied.

Then she took the Pip-boy away from Preston.

"Hey, I didn't get to mark it," Preston said.

"Doesn't matter, you'll be showing me the place in person anyway," Phil said, dropping the Pip-boy on the floor next to the bed.

"Really?" Preston's eyes widened hopefully.

"Yeah. You wanted us to clear out the place, didn't you?" Phil said, turning back to Preston and hooking a leg over his hip. "So you and me are going tomorrow."

"Yeah, but I thought you'd be taking--" Preston cleared his throat awkwardly. "Never mind. Yeah. Yes. We're going."

"Not right now, though," Phil said, kissing along Preston's jawline.

"Oh, definitely not right now," Preston agreed, and rolled the both of them over.

Phil started giggling again.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, when Phil asked Hancock if he'd like to wait in Sanctuary while she and Preston went to clear out a new settlement, he acquiesced with a slow tip of his tricorn.

Phil didn't think much of it. She went and picked up her gun from the house, checked her pack a final time, and when she returned, Hancock and Preston seemed to be in the middle of a conversation.

"So tell me, Garvey, what's going to stop the Minutemen from falling apart this time?" Hancock was just asking, a strange glint in his eye.

Phil trailed to a stop next to Preston, and puzzled, looked at his face to see his reaction, but Preston didn't seem particularly bothered by the comment.

Preston tilted his head, gesturing towards Phil.

"You're looking at 'em," Preston replied.

Then he smiled at Phil and asked if she was ready to leave. Phil nodded.

But then when they turned to leave, Phil couldn't help herself from getting a final look over her shoulder at Hancock.

The ghoul gave her a toothy, ear-to-ear smile, and Phil responded in kind. She didn't understand what had transpired between Preston and Hancock just then, but when they were far enough away, she would curl her fingers nervously around Preston's sleeve and ask.

"I can see why you like the guy," would be the only thing Preston admitted, with a slanted smile like he didn't know what to make of Phil's tastes.

 

* * *

 

It was nearly four days later when she and Preston returned to Sanctuary Hills, and Hancock was one of the first people they came across, having a smoke with Mama Murphy. From the empty Jet inhalers and tins of Mentats on the low table before them, they'd apparently had quite a party, and Preston's lips had tightened in disapproval.

"I'll have a talk with him," Phil promised, brushing a hand down Preston's arm like smoothing down ruffled feathers.

For some reason, the thought of Preston and Hancock not getting along made her nervous. She wanted them to be, if not friends, then at least on somewhat friendly terms, and she thoughts, perhaps foolishly, that they had enough in common that that was possible.

Hancock wasn't making it easy though.

Phil had her talk with him later that night, when it was just the two of them, sitting in patio chairs around the fire pit. Phil smoked nervously as she talked, and she asked him not to give Mama Murphy any chems anymore.

"She's a grown woman," Hancock had said.

"That's the problem. She is. _Really_ grown. At her age, more chems will just kill her faster," Phil replied.

Hancock grunted, and Phil thought maybe he was dismissing her comments, but then he reached over and took her hand holding the cigarette, bringing it over to his lips.

He took a long drag of her cigarette, slow and thorough, and then blew it out just as slowly. 

"I know you don't like chems," Hancock said, smoke curling around him as he stared, heavy-lidded, into the fire, "and in any other situation I'd say it's the old gal's decision how she lives her life. But you're just looking out for your people, and I can appreciate that. I won't offer Mama Murphy anything from now on."

He was still holding Phil's hand close to his face, and Phil thought he was going to take another drag, but instead he leaned forwards to kiss the knuckles of her gently curled fingers. His lips were uneven and strangely textured, but warm and dry and pleasant against the backs of her fingers. It felt like it caught sparks across her skin, and all the way down her spine, so distracting that Phil was surprised when he released her hand. She almost forgot she was still holding the cigarette.

"Oh, um... okay," she stammered nonsensically. "That's-- It's the most I can ask."

Hancock grinned at her, and the firelight reflected in his black eyes flickered enticingly, and Phil...

Phil realized she was well and truly fucked.

She finished her cigarette and tried not to think about it.


End file.
